The meta of Apex Legends underwent one of its most drastic shifts in recent memory at the beginning of season 14. Big buffs, nerfs, ammo changes, and new attachments led to what feels like a completely new weapon meta, and changes to different legends and their abilities have also shaken things up.
With nerfs to Valkyrie, big buffs coming in for Newcastle, and more adjustments made here and there, it’s clear that the developers at Respawn wanted to change the game with the new season and bring characters that were some of the most and least popular picks among the player base closer to the middle. That goes double for the professional level, where Valkyrie has defined Apex and how it’s played at the highest level for about a year. And meta changes mean teams like TSM must develop new plans.
Luckily, TSM IGL Philip “ImperialHal” Dosen thinks his squad’s immediate plans for the shifting meta will surprise their North American opponents when the Apex Legends Global Series kicks off later this year.
While Hal doesn’t think the pro meta will change too terribly from the super-aggresive style that’s become popular over the past month, he did reveal that TSM’s newly-planned composition and playstyle will catch other team’s off-guard. He also noted the high-risk, high-reward nature of his team’s plan: “it might fuck over some teams… or fuck us over too, who knows.”
Despite Hal’s assertion that he doesn’t see “much changing” with the pro meta, it’s been in flux since the ALGS Championship. Many teams have finally dropped Gibraltar from their compositions after a two-year period where he dominated pro pick rates. There were hints of Gibraltar falling from his top spot in the winter, and the evolution of the Seer meta in combination with an indirect nerf to his Dome of Protection, which Mad Maggie’s Wrecking Ball can now destroy, has only made him even less valuable.
It doesn’t appear that pros have given up on Valkyrie yet, despite the considerable nerfs to her abilities in season 14. But outside of Gibraltar’s fall and Seer’s rise, many teams are heavily experimenting with their team compositions. 100 Thieves, who helped bring Newcastle to popularity with their Newcastle-Wattson-Valkyrie composition, have already tested swapping out Wattson for Rampart. Horizon picks have reemerged in the pro scene, and a few teams have attempted to drop Valkyrie in favor of other legends with rotational utility for their team, like Ash, Octane, and Wraith.
Whatever TSM’s eventual plans, it will likely involve moving support player Jordan “Reps” Wolfe off of Gibraltar. Past that, it’s anyone’s guess exactly how the team plans to go about surprising the rest of the scene when most other teams are still experimenting with their new compositions.
It’s an exciting time to be a fan of pro Apex, with the game seeing the most major meta changes and character swaps it has seen since the beginning of last season. The ALGS is scheduled to return sometime later this year, and there’s no telling just what’s in store for the players and fans when the games begin.
